Page 61 of May the Stars Have Mercy
“Jruc.” Rexna put a palm down to the drone, allowing it to scuttle up their arm and settle on their shoulder. “My sibling in science.”
Aphrodite watched Rexna type onto their data pad, conversing with their drone back and forth. After a long moment, Xexis appeared, seeing yet another drone inhabited by a shadowy creature. He eyed Aphrodite suspiciously before jabbing his thumb toward the laboratory. She returned, allowing him to begin molding the armor to her front while she finished stitching.
She fell asleep in her bunk later that night, her flight suit finished and armor ready. Buddy rested next to her feet, chirped softly and wiggling at Jruc before going into sleep mode.At least something good came from the abyss where these creatures came.
Chapter Thirty-Five:
Aphroditewokeinanabyss. Dark, thick nothingness that engulfed all her senses. She sat up in the void and searched across it for any light or life. Endless. Her hands reached out like she was feeling for the edge of the bunk or the top of the ship. Nothing was solid around her except the firm pressure keeping her from free fall. However, the moment she realized nothing was firm, she dropped. Her stomach flew up into her throat. Legs kicking, arms flailing, she tried to grab ahold of something.Anything.
Then a gust of wind wrapped around her hand, around her wrist and yanked her upwards in the dark. She stopped falling. Her legs dangled beneath her as she stared up into the void. A shadow shifted before her, but she couldn’t see its shape.It is shapeless.
“Help us.”The voice was a whisper in her ear. It was low, raspy, as if drawn from the last breaths of clenched lungs.
“Who are you? What do you want?”
“They infected us. They broke us from our home. We hunger. We can never be fed. We still hunger and continue to hunger till we find a feast. We never used to hunger like this. Insatiable.”There were several voices now, tendrils of smoke and air wrapping around her torso and legs. They were surrounding her, their pleas growing louder. “Kill us! Kill the hungry ones!”
“What?” she barked.
“Kill. The. Hungry. Ones!”
She was dropped from their smoke into the void. Falling left her insides tangled as she stared up through nothingness. Then her body smacked into the bed bunk. Aphrodite shrieked, twisted and turning. She caught it, just out of the corner of her eye. A smokey tendril slipping back through the wall of the ship. Buddy was at her side in the blink of an eye and his light flashed the whole bunkroom.
Everyone jumped to attention as Aphrodite wheezed, scrambling away from the wall. She dropped off the bunk and into Xexis’ arms. Her gaze jerked back and forth looking for more of them. Sweat drenched her skin. Hair stuck to her face and neck, she looked for any other shadows. Buddy scanned the walls, chirping as he moved along.
Xexis stroked her arm, “My Mate?”
“The shadows…they…” Her mouth stopped functioning as Buddy crawled to the edge of the bed. Something dripped out of her nose and pure dread filled her belly. Buddy tapped a tentacle to her data pad. Her heart thundered as she swiped it out from under her pillow and wiggled out from the crowded bunks. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.”
Xexis followed her as she rushed through the ship and down into the laboratory. Tears welled in her eyes as she filled the small room with light. It was blinding, but she didn’t feel safe without it. Aphrodite, in her sleeper leggings and tank top, sank to the floor, hunched over the data pad. Breathing was the hardest part. Her heart was racing, making her head spin. Planting her hands flat against the cool metal, she did her best not to pass out. Panicturned her blood into a slushy, her body weighing down like concrete.
Her mate knelt beside her, a hand to her lower back. “Aphrodite?”
“They spoke to me in my dreams. They reached out and begged me… They…I didn’t know they could… What if they’re…” Aphrodite sobbed, swiping at her nose.Vivian said they enter through the nostrils.She wiped and wiped and wiped but the droplets wouldn’t stop till there was blood smeared on the side of her hand. Shoulders tense, she barked the next words out of her mouth. “Buddy, scan me again.”
“My mate—”
“Buddy! Scan. Me. Again!” She snarled, glancing at the drone. He chirped sadly, floating up into the air above her. An orange grid of light fell over her. She stared at the empty text screen as Buddy booted up the results to the scans. The circles spun before her, leaving her insides a swirling mess. Xexis and her watched the screen.
“Aphrodite…”
“If I’m infected,” she growled between clenched teeth. “I’m ordering Buddy to shoot me in the head.”
“You will do no such thing,” he snarled.
“We do not have the means to do brain surgery, Xexis. If they’re inside me, then they’re attached to my brain stem. I’ll be infected with Lyssavirus and the Brexzkit; there is no cure. And I won’t turn out like Fqa, fighting for my life until they eventually feed on me to death.” She faced him, her heart skipping a beat. His obsidian gaze bore through her. It left her twisted and in knots inside, unable to move or speak.
Please.She ripped her gaze toward the screen. Buddy’s findings finally filled the screen. Her throat closed around a lump as the screen filled with numbers and charts. Finally, his text appeared over all of it.
Aphrodite Kerso is no longer infected.
“What!?” she barked.
The Brexzkit were inside Aphrodite Kerso, they fed on some of her nutrients, but they left. Aphrodite is not infected anymore.
Aphrodite sat up fully before sinking her back against one of the walls. Her legs kicked out before her.No longer infected.Her heart beat like angry wings on a bird against her ribs.No longer infected.Then her dream wasn’t a dream. It was a brain stem phone call. Cool sweat ran down her spine and pooled at the small of her back.
“They said kill the hungry ones. That they were infected.” Aphrodite finally found the strength to speak. She glued her gaze on Xexis who sat, just as exhausted, against a leg of the table in the lab.
